It is well known in the field of photography to provide a stand or fixture for holding a camera and/or the subject to be photographed so as to maintain the two in a relationship suitable for making close-up photographs. It is also known from commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 3,514,206 to provide such a fixture with an auxiliary lens to assist in focusing the camera on the subject and a baffle and diffuse surface to attenuate and reflect the flashcube illumination of the camera employed onto the subject area. In the '206 patent, the fixture is a copy stand for photographing documents laid flat on a horizontal surface. Other fixtures for photographing horizontal documents, photographic prints, small objects, and the like, are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,403,892, 2,590,916, 3,709,119 and 4,701,039.
A variety of other close-up camera attachments for various diverse applications, including medical, passport, dental, journalistic, law enforcement, naturalistic and scientific applications, are known: e.g. those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,195,431, 3,687,030, 3,836,927, and 4,755,838. Typically, these attachments are mounted to the camera, and the camera is held by the photographer in relation to the subject to be photographed.
In the fields of architecture and construction, photographic fixtures are employed to photograph model buildings and room arrangements at various angles, as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,495,516, 4,114,167, and 4,498,748.
Children also enjoy using simple cameras to take pictures of various scenes. The cameras for children typically have a fixed focus range of between infinity and about five feet, since children have difficulty judging distance and setting proper focus of adjustable focus cameras. The close-up distance of five feet is too long to allow the children to create close-up pictures with maximum desirable detail, but children are not always aware of this. Children often take out of focus and mis-aligned photographs when they attempt to take pictures in these situations.
Such cameras also typically include simple, fixed output illumination, electronic flash units mounted on the camera close to the lens. The output illumination level is typically chosen for a distance to the subject in excess of the five foot focus limit. Consequently, flash pictures taken close to the subject also exhibit glare reflected from the subject and obscure subject details.
While auto-focus and auto-exposure features could be added to such cameras at additional cost, their proper functioning still has limitations which are particularly evident in close-up situations. Children, in any case, have difficulty holding the camera still and viewing through the viewfinder on the desired subject long enough to allow the auto-focus and auto-exposure features to function properly.
Children play with dolls and action figures and their accessories (i.e., playthings) that can be posed in a variety of configurations or settings. Typical children's play consists of arranging these figures and associated accessories into a variety of settings to act out various situations. Should the child (or adult for that matter) desire to take an image at a typical close-up distance of between two and four feet, the view-finder in the typical child's camera does not frame the scene correctly because of a separation in that range between the viewing and taking optics (referred to as parallax). At these close ranges, small changes in the position of the camera significantly changes the taking field when the camera is held by hand. In addition, children typically have problems framing scenes for good composition, resulting in poor quality photographs.
Problems to be Solved by the Invention
None of the prior art reflects the special needs of children in organizing and arranging subjects for taking pictures and controlling the operation of the camera and flash unit, particularly for close-up photography of their playthings.